


Bites the Dust/Bohemian Rhapsody

by suecsit



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:28:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25601350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suecsit/pseuds/suecsit
Summary: After asking his sensei for advice, Demetri takes the stage at Moon's party, and things fall apart.
Relationships: Demetri & Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz, Demetri/Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz
Comments: 12
Kudos: 64





	Bites the Dust/Bohemian Rhapsody

Demetri really thought things would settle down after Cobra Kai, cough, Eli, vandalized the dojo and left the toilet paper and spray paint littered all over the property.

Unfortunately, he was dead wrong.

When Demetri logged on to Yelp to review his recent trip to the froyo place in the Encino Commons, he saw a new review listed from Eli, whom he’d forgot to unfollow during the turbulent days of their current feud. Eli never used his Yelp account because he wasn’t much of a writer, but he’d made one out of solidarity a year or so ago when Demetri got hooked. They had even thought about starting an account together. Thank god that had never happened.

He didn’t like the idea of untangling his name from someone who now called himself Hawk without a trace of irony.

Eli had left a review for Miyagi-Do. But Eli, being one who hated writing, had somehow found a way to upload a video to the review instead of a long diatribe about karate styles or sensei abuse or customer service. This seemed odd because Demetri thought you could only upload pictures, not video.

Demetri’s cursor hovered over the small square. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Inner peace…inner peace….inner peace, he chanted inwardly.

What he found was unsettling. Not because it was your typical Fight Club meeting or Neanderthal chant of “No mercy!” but because it was rather…banal, to be honest. In the video, Eli and a few other guys were chasing a pig around a yard, trying to pin it down. At the end of the short clip, they succeeded, only to find that the pig had “Miyagi-Do” written all over its smooth pink belly. Eli then looked right into the camera and grinned.

If I’m not cool, what the hell does that make you? Demetri chuckled under his breath. Someone who tortures barnyard animals for fun?

What Demetri failed to recognize at first was that the sound had been off. Thinking he had only missed out on a few squeals from the poor animal, he almost clicked off the page in annoyance.  
His finger slipped and the sound came on. What he thought would be pig squeals turned out to be something else. He clicked his computer’s volume icon to increase the sound.

As Eli and his new-found goons were chasing poor Wilbur in circles, Demetri heard the unmistakable bass thumping of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.”

Well then.

Back when he and Eli were younger, even younger than their Pillowtown fort days, they dreamed of being rock stars together. Eli was going to be Freddie Mercury and Demetri would be his sidekick Brian Ray. They used to grab Eli’s dad’s deodorant and use it as a microphone. In the basement they’d put their iPods on repeat for Queen songs, always ending with “We Are the Champions.”

He remembered stretching his arms up in the air, lip synching to the ceiling, strumming his imaginary guitar. Eli was beside him, a look of pure joy on his face, an arm around his shoulder.

Demetri scolded himself for venturing back down memory lane. The real estate there was certainly foreclosed on. Why he kept creeping around the abandoned houses…. he couldn’t say. Part of him thought he’d wake up and discover all of this had been a nightmare.

The next day he was helping Daniel reposition some of the statues in the dojo landscaping with a few of the new guys who had become disenchanted with Cobra Kai. When his sensei crossed over to the corner where he was working, Demetri mistakenly took his hands off the heavy rock and walked over to where Daniel was standing. Behind him two guys fell forward.

“What the hell, Demetri?”

“Sorry, guys,” he said. Not that was sorry, really. The guys helping him had once belonged to the evil cult that brainwashed his best friend.

Daniel looked down at him. “Something wrong? Besides the usual?”

“Could I ask you something, Mr. LaRusso?”

Daniel walked with him to the side of the property. They sat on a bench that still had a few stray marks of spray paint on it.

“I have this…friend. He’s…well, he knows everything about me,” Demetri paused. “I mean, he used to be like my brother.”

Daniel looked confused. “Used to be?”

“I guess I want to ask if, I mean, you….shit, sorry.”

“Just breathe.”

“Were you and Sensei Lawrence ever friends, or did you always hate each other?” Demetri rushed in a tumble of words. He wasn’t breathing at all. And he damn well didn’t feel like it.

Daniel chuckled and then frowned. “It’s fair to say we’ve never been friends. Not in any traditional sense. But we do know an awful lot about each other. I think that’s what makes it even harder.”

“Why?”

“Well…” Daniel paused, looking like he was swallowing words that threatened to escape, “if someone knows you when you’re young, they’ve seen the best and worst of you. With Johnny….” He faltered. “Well, ok, you were at the tournament, right?”

“Right.”

“You saw Miguel do that weird kick at the beginning of the first round?”

“Uhhhh….”

“Never mind. Not important. The point is that the kick he did … that was mine. My kick.”

“So?”

Daniel sighed. Demetri knew the look. It was the one Daniel saved just for him when he was trying his patience. “It’s not like he did anything terrible. It’s just…he had knowledge few people in that building had. No one else would have gotten the joke. Sam did. But that was it.”

“You mean only your daughter and your enemy…”

“Right,” Daniel nodded. “Only my daughter and Johnny Lawrence knew what that move meant to me. My daughter knew because she trained with me when she was little, just as she’s doing now.”

“Are you saying it’s like he’s—”

“Family? No. God, no. But, in a weird way, yes.”

“Why would your own family trash your dojo?”

“They wouldn’t. And I’m not certain he did. I think someone else was behind it.”

Demetri looked down at his shoes. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Probably.”

“Look, all I’m saying is that as much as I hate Johnny sometimes, I actually felt kind of happy to see Miguel do the kick because…”

“Someone knew you.”

“Right. Exactly. Someone shared the same memory. I’m guessing it’s the same with this friend of yours.”

“He’s not really my friend anymore. He’s in Cobra Kai. He threatened me and made you a bad Yelp review. Probably tore this place up. It’s all my fault.”

“Whoa,” Daniel said. He put his hand on Demetri’s shoulder. “One thing at a time. First of all, I hope you know that just because he’s in Cobra Kai doesn’t mean you can’t be friends. I was in Cobra Kai once—”

Demetri, ever self-absorbed, ignored him and rammed forward. “He did all of this so you should probably kick me out, Mr. LaRusso. I’m like a curse or something. As long as I’m here, he’ll never stop.” Demetri stood up as if to leave, his pulse getting quick and his own patience wearing thin. He could see a smile creep into the corners of Daniel’s face, and he didn’t like it. None of this was funny. None of it.

“Hold on, sit down.” Daniel reached out for Demitri’s arm and tugged him down. “If you ask me, it’s just like what you told me, right?”

“Huh?”

“You have memories in common. A shared past. Maybe you should appeal to that. Look at where you started.”

“How? By making fun of the way he kicks?”

Daniel rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Not that. Just…give it some thought.”

Demetri thought how weird it was to have an adult listen to his problems. An adult who wasn’t charging him for lessons. An adult who wasn’t his family at all.

__________________________________

When Demitri got to Moon’s house, she kissed him on the cheek and smelled like strawberries. He held on to her a second too long and inhaled too deeply. She gently pushed him back. Over her shoulder Eli was watching him. Like a hawk. He groaned inwardly at his terrible joke.

/Of course, he’s watching you, it WAS his ex, you idiot./

/But I’m his ex now, too./

He walked slowly toward Eli on the couch, remembering to breathe. Only the breath came out in short gasps and he suddenly made a beeline for the drink counter instead. He was no better than the pig in the damn video, always biting Eli’s dust. Always afraid. Screw him.

He found himself looking frantically for something wet. Anything wet. Didn’t matter how much alcohol it had in it. He grabbed a Coors from a nearby cooler and chugged it. A burp escaped his lips, and he laughed a little.

“Hey, slow down,” Robby said. He clapped a hand on Demetri’s shoulder from behind him, startling him and causing him to spill the foam.

“Thanks, but I don’t need the good men of the North to defend me this time,” he barked, taking another large swig of beer.

Robby, looking a little hurt, put his hands up in surrender and backed away.

With half the drink gone, Demetri walked toward the couch again. Eventually he got there, holding his red plastic cup of beer like a security blanket. He sat down a few feet away from his former….whatever the hell he was.

“So.”

Eli turned to look at him. “So.”

“Been watching the new Dr. Who?”

“I don’t watch that nerd stuff anymore.”

“Yeah, apparently you don’t have time, what with the torturing of small animals on the Internet.”

“Life isn’t all fairy tales and sleepovers, loser.”

“Huh?”

“Some of us have real problems.” He saw Eli glance over to Moon, who was curled up in her new partner’s lap. Her female partner’s lap.

Eli took a large gulp of beer and then followed the line of vision. Suddenly, he felt two things at once: pity for Eli at losing someone he cared about, and jealousy over the fact that Eli wasn’t depressed about losing HIM. Since that made little sense, he took another swig of beer.

“There’s a new showrunner.”

The non sequitur escaped Eli as he continued to stare at Moon. His grip on his own beverage was getting tighter.

“She’s moved on,” he said softly. “Just let it go.”

Without another word, Eli turned and dumped the entire cup of…vodka? Bourbon? down Demetri’s front. He threw the empty cup on the ground and stomped away.

At that moment, as Demetri’s jaw dropped and he pulled his wet t-shirt away from his body in disgust, Moon came to the front of the room with a microphone. “Karaoke time!” she sang out.

Before Demetri knew what he was doing, he stood up, the hard liquor still assaulting his senses and making him shiver from the cold. “I’ll go first,” he said.

No one responded when he grabbed the mike. He had to catch himself on the chair's back to get his balance; after all, Demetri didn’t drink regularly, and he weighed about 90 pounds soaking wet. The edges of the crowd looked fuzzy to him now.

The Miyagi-do kids just looked at him with worry while the Cobra Kai partiers set their mouths in straight lines. That said, Demetri did think that some of them were tired of Eli’s crap. He could just tell. The room wasn’t completely on Team Hawk. Not like it used to be. 

“So I know we’re not gonna play Trivial Pursuit like I hoped we would,” he extemporized. “But I thought maybe I’d take a little time to thank some people who’ve been in my life this past year.”

He gestured over to Piper and Moon. “Piper, you have a wonderful partner there,” he said. “Do your best to take care of her, ok? She’s always been a good friend to me, even if her ex-boyfriend wasn’t.”

“I mean it IS 2018, folks,” he couldn’t help but add. “I mean…who would have thought last year I’d be taking karate right now? Who’d have thought we’d have a female doctor on the BBC?” 

A few girls clapped. That made Demetri felt warm, and he was encouraged to keep talking.

His gaze fell on Eli. “I mean….everything and everyone changes. Nothing stays the same, right? Take our friend Eli, the red Hulk here. He’s all muscles and mohawks but I can tell you that wasn’t always the case.”

He turned to Moon and whispered something in her ear. She looked puzzled, and then shook her head as if to say no. 

“Damn, “ he explained, turning back to the crowd before him. “If you must know, I was asking her if she could play Bohemian Rhapsody…”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Eli take a step forward. 

“QUEEEEEEN!!!!” Stingray yelled, his cup raised in a toast. He was forgetting that Demetri was on the opposing side and that he wasn’t supposed to cheer for Miyagi-do students. 

“Exactly!” Demetri raised his cup in solidarity with Stingray. “And you know, it’s a damn shame that Eli and I can’t sing our favorite song for you here tonight. Because we used to sing that song. TOGETHER.”

He looked over at Hawk, his gaze never wavering. “We even used to dress like them, remember? You’d wear your Freddie Mercury outfit. You guys should have seen it, all red and sequins…”

“That’s enough, Demetri,” Eli hissed. He turned and grabbed Moon’s shoulder. “Take that damn mike away.” 

Moon shook him off, moving to the side and watching Demetri with a frown. When Demetri made eye contact, she frowned, as if trying to figure something out. 

“We’d have sleepovers and stay up half the night singing together,” Demetri continued. “We’d finally collapse on the mattress, and Eli would, well, you know what you did….”

Hawk crossed the room in two seconds flat and hurled the microphone against the sliding glass doors. “You’re dead,” he whispered. “Dead.” He grabbed Demetri’s arm and started to twist it behind his back. The members of the two warring dojos were getting to their feet. 

“I was just gonna mention the time you wet the bed, ‘HAWK,’” he said with a crooked smile, one which should have been tempered by the pain of his arm being yanked out of its socket. Strange how it wasn’t. “What did you think I was talking about?”

At the sound of police sirens, Hawk dropped Eli’s arm and backed away from the front door. Everyone else scrambled to get their cups and run out the back. Chaos erupted. 

“To be continued,” Demetri said. He didn’t care if the police took him away. He simply didn’t care. 

Moon did, though, and she grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the fray. They ended up in the backyard. “What the hell was that?” she asked. 

“That’s the cops busting up your party,” Demetri explained, not understanding how someone could be that clueless.

“No, I mean what you were doing in there,” she said, her eyes angry and her tone clipped. “It sounded like….” Her voice trailed off. 

Demetri backed away from her. “Sorry if I made a scene.” 

When Moon heard the loud knocks on her front door, she crossed the yard and opened the side door to the front porch. Demetri heard her making polite excuses to the men out front, trying to cajole them into giving her a warning. 

Demetri felt someone’s breath on him. “You want her to protect you?” 

He turned and a fist met his nose, just as it had before when Kreese roughed him up in the dojo. He dropped to the grass and then looked up at Eli, who was standing in front of him, hands shaking. 

Sitting up, Demetri’s hand caught blood and he snorted. “You’re gonna have to kill me.” He pulled himself shakily to his feet, the alcohol still making the night a bit soft around the edges and the pain less acute. For now.

They stared at each other. “If that’s what it takes,” Eli seethed. “That’s what I’ll do.”

“Why not now? Get it over with!”

This is what happens when you find a medal of honor, he thought. You’re not Sam the Slayer anymore. You’re just a clumsy oaf with a death wish. 

For just a minute Eli looked lost. Demetri was standing close enough to notice the scar above his lip. It seemed more defined, a dark pink line dividing one side of his face from the next. 

He remembered his English teacher telling him something about Greek mythology. “Janus has two faces,” she had said. But not just that. Janus was the god of transitions, doorways, time, and endings. He suddenly laughed to himself. 

They stared at one another. It seemed like hours, but it was only a few minutes. He could hear Chris calling his name. He could hear someone throwing up in the bushes. All of that dissolved into the periphery, and he was the snake now, holding Eli in his gaze and swaying slightly, still unbalanced by the booze.

“You’re a corpse,” Eli said, but his voice was hard to hear. It was small now, uncertain. 

Suddenly Chris was beside him, an arm around his shoulder. “You need help with anything?” he asked, his eyes trained on Eli. 

Eli shifted his eyes to regard Chris with disgust. “Back off, traitor. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It’s ok, Chris,” Demetri said. “I can handle it. I can handle HIM.”

Eli’s face turned to stone. “You got lucky,” he said. “I’ll see you in school.”

He left. Chris followed him after giving Demetri one last pat on the shoulder.

As Demetri covered his face with his hands, he could hear Stingray singing in the distance. 

Mamaaaa, oooooh….  
I don't want to die  
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.

He couldn’t help but laugh. The music settled in his brain, an earworm that would play over and over until the first day of school. That day when the red mohawk would move like a fin upon the waters, and he’d be forced to hide again, the medal long forgotten.

Any way the wind blows, he muttered to himself.


End file.
